


Rebellions Are Built On Hope (I Keep None For Myself)

by EnglishAsSheIsSpoke



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mortal, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Booker is a depressed rat man in every galaxy, Multi, cynicism and alcohol as coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:09:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28191462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglishAsSheIsSpoke/pseuds/EnglishAsSheIsSpoke
Summary: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Rebellions Are Built On Hope (I Keep None For Myself)

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens you have a Big Bang to write, an uncooperative brain, and TOG discorders encouraging your ideas.
> 
> Andy, Nicky, Joe, and Nile are SpecOps Pathfinders. Booker is their oft-assigned Intelligence officer. As you can see, he is coping well in the role.

The mission was a success, by any definition of the word. 

They had secured the information packet on the Imps’ troop movements rimwards. They had taken out several arms smugglers. Booker had come in from three months invested in playing the part of Sorath Arkada, a merchant with a hand in spice smuggling, wheeling and dealing his way into the underworld of Kor Vella for access to a cantina patronised by Imperial officers. No one on the team had been shot. Booker was covered in his own vomit, which was a point against, but that was only because he’d drunk most of a vile tankard of something that burned the whole way down to the cheers of the cantina crowd; it had been an effective distraction while Andy copied the data from a chip briefly borrowed from and returned to the target. It had burned coming back up too.

He’d thrown up on the street, Andy dragging him by the arm as he staggered and hunched with convulsions and wondered if a sniper’s scope had a clear line of sight right at that typically undignified moment.

Maybe it was the malaise of oncoming withdrawal. To maintain the identity of his cover, and to build trust in Sorath from his fellow degenerates, Booker had spent a night here and there partaking in the spices he was supposed to be moving. Sometimes multiple nights. Towards the end there was over a week that he would have to gloss over in his report, fill in the cracks with suppositions. Not that it would matter. Copley trusted him to share the important details. How he got the information wasn’t a concern and Booker was fine that a lot of it was clouded by a haze of spice. He’d had to– well, anyway, that was Sorath, not Booker, and Sorath was dead.

He had enjoyed some parts of his time as Sorath Arkada though. Sorath always had a full bottle of Corellian ale and a little something extra in his pocket, just to make each day a little sparkier. He’d always kept a vial of glitterstim on him, which was now a mistake-in-the-making sitting in Booker’s pocket. He ought to have left everything about Sorath behind.

Maybe he just needed to sleep. Booker felt tired all the way to his bones. He probably just needed to sleep. The U-Wing bounced through hyperspace, the hum of the engines a burr in his head. He felt dizzy and exhausted at the prospect of reporting into the Yavin-4 base. He’d need to be a reliable Alliance Intelligence agent again. He’d be assigned a new target, a new identity, maybe even a new team. What did it matter. He was barely useful as a field officer anymore. Maybe they’d let him take one of the high-risk packets, let him throw himself at the cause like it’d leave any mark on the fragging map.

And if by some chance the Alliance succeeded (and it was a chance so infinitesimal that he barely bothered thinking of it at all), sooner or later it would become what they were now fighting. Corruption grew without fail in the cracks, like mould and weeds and damp. If the new government didn’t turn against its people, it would be replaced again by something worse, by someone more willing to cease and hold power by whatever means necessary. It was inevitable. Booker had seen the revolutions on his planet, had fought for them and against them, was conscripted into armies and deserted his fellow soldiers, his family, his homeland, and none of it meant anything. It was all a pile of bantha shit.

“Book,” said a voice in the darkness. “Booker. Sebastien.”

A weighted pause, and then:

“Sorath.”

When had he shut his eyes? Booker opened them and saw Andy crouched in front of him. She was frowning.

“Eyes open, Book. You’re talking shit out loud.”

Dank farrik, how much had he said. Too much. Not that he hadn’t said it all to Andy before. At least it wasn’t Nicky or Joe. Or the pair of them. Nicky, who preached kindness after holding position with his sniper’s blaster for hours, eyes fixed mercilessly on his target until the perfect moment to strike. Joe at his back, spotting and protecting and smiling, always there, always together, always in sync. Faithful to the cause, certain of their path. No wonder they hadn’t asked him to stay, the morning he left for Kor Vella. Nicky and Joe. They were piloting in the cockpit and hadn’t heard a word he said. Maybe the galaxy could be merciful, after all.

“I’m awake,” he muttered balefully.

Booker generally preferred Andy’s company. Andy and a bottle of Johrian Whiskey. She, at least, understood the way of it. They were all of them doomed. Even though right at that moment she was holding out a flask of water with an expression that suggested he would drink all of it or she would _make_ him drink all of it. She was still his favourite. He drank the flask and alternated reactive swallows and deep breathing to keep it all down.

Finally he felt fairly sure he wasn’t going to throw up on Andy’s feet a second time in the same day, and gave her a lopsided wink. “Good as new.”

Andy rolled her eyes but still offered him her wry smile. It was reassuring after the last three months that he could still inspire a smile of any kind from anyone who knew even a small part of what he’d been up to. All for the cause, he repeated to himself, such as it was. “Good as sun-dried shit, you stink like rancid nerf milk. You should get changed before Copley sees you.”

Booker looked down. The alcohol he’d inflicted upon his poor stomach had been bright green and the resultant vomit had dried in dark green splashes on his jacket and pants. How long had he spent the trip back from Corellia in a blacked-out haze? And did he have time to sweet-talk Joe into taking a few loops around the system, just stalling long enough for Booker to put on different clothes, put together his Intelligence officer demeanor, put away Sorath and Kor Vella, leave it all in the black and face Copley as Sebastien le Livre, spy of spies. He’d need to sober up first, of course.

The U-Wing dropped out of hyperspace above Yavin-4. 


End file.
